


Choices

by Percygranger



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 2014 backlog, BDSM, Impact Play, M/M, POV First Person, POV Sherlock Holmes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:53:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24463831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Percygranger/pseuds/Percygranger
Summary: John makes Sherlock decide his punishment.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Kudos: 21





	Choices

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt on the BBC Sherlock Kinkmeme:   
> <https://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/22393.html?thread=132260473#t132260473>

I fidget, a stone in the pit of my stomach as I wait for John to return. My phone is nearby, turned off for the duration, but a handy object to fiddle with. The familiar motion of flipping it over and over does little to calm me, however. Usually I completely ignore the sensation of it; the way my muscles expand and contract in their minute, unconsciously skilled movements to throw and catch, throw and catch the small, deceptively heavy device. Usually I simply enjoy the effect it has without a care. This time I can’t stop thinking about it, nearly fumbling it as it flips half a turn further than expected, my observations interfering with my own functioning. 

My body’s too present right now, my breathing and heartbeat intrusive, the weight of my body pressing heavily on my soles as gravity drags me down. All my muscles feel like elastic pulled too tight. I’m a puppet jerking against its strings, no matter how I might need them. My movements feel forced, spastic. My heartbeat’s a drum trying to pound its way out of my chest, steady and determined.

I hate being this way, unable to ignore my transport for other options. I would fight against feeling this way except for the science of it. This is only an intermediary stage, and it is necessary to pass through it to get to something better. 

The desired state, unlike in a true scientific inquiry, isn’t something one talks about easily, or even describes with any certainty. There’s a variety of outcomes that depend upon the forces involved. John’s gotten very good at conducting this series of experiments, though. Sometimes I give him every step he needs to take, when we discuss it, and sometimes - like this time - he decides to amalgamate all the information he’s received and turn our ongoing attempts into something unexpected. Planned, yes, but only he knows exactly what that plan is, unless he feels revealing it to me is conducive to his efforts. I never know if he will or not, and I must admit, an unpredictable John is always an adventure. 

I have only small clues what he’s doing behind that door, our door, but that doesn’t concern me nearly as much as why he went there in the first place.

It only takes another 142 paired beats of my heart for John to open the door, leaving it open to a view of his retreating back. It’s an invitation and order rolled into one. The stone in my stomach lurches into butterflies, and I feel dizzy as I walk through the threshold. 

Despite how my head spins, every step is an exercise in present consciousness, involuntary meditation. The air against my arms is cool, and my skin prickles. The floor creaks under my feet, and the faint sounds of traffic mingle with my own too-audible breathing. John is as silent as a rock, though his feet seem not to have any weight against the aged floors, making no noise. He stops at the far end of the bed, even with the post, and turns, finding my searching eyes without a word. I stop at the other side, the three feet between us feels like a barrier, a magnetic field repelling me. 

He’s impassive, body radiating with that elusive streak of command the Army honed in him. He rarely sets it loose outside this place. My pulse thrills at the sight. I want to break down then and there: just fall to my knees, beg forgiveness, reverse our polarities, but that’s not how this works. 

His eyes move toward the bed, directing my attention to it. I’ve been hyper-focused on him, sloppy, and failed to notice what lay on it as I entered. There’s six implements - all parts of past experiments - laid out in neat order. I can’t help a quick, deep breath at them. Surely I don’t deserve them all? I turn back to John in dismay, willing to argue the point, but John keeps me silent with a look, raised eyebrows and tiny half-shake of his head. I settle, aware now that I don’t have all the information. 

John waits another agonizing thirty seconds, testing my ability to wait. The silence ratchets my pulse another notch higher, my brain trying and failing and trying to compile alternatives: things I might say to convince John of another way should his plan truly be beyond my scope. He and I have gotten better at this, but it doesn’t mean we don’t misstep occasionally. 

John breathes in to speak, and I still completely, the hyper-focus returning without my conscious volition. 

“Your behavior today was terrible.” He pauses. Waiting for a response, I realize, and I manage a nod despite my locked muscles. 

“So, I’m giving you a choice.” His head ticks towards the bed. “Pick two, tell me how many strokes you deserve. I’ll give it to you...if it’s enough.” His lips twitch at this. “If it’s not, I’ll correct you. I think you can guess how much you’ll enjoy that.”

I can feel myself pulling away, rocking back on my heels, spine drawing into a curve as though someone has invaded my space, punching me in my vulnerable stomach. My eyes flicker around the room as I take in not just the words, but the implications. The choices are itself punishment, before we even begin the painful, heat-induced metamorphosis portion of the evening. It’s sending my own flickering self-protective instincts to war with what I can guess (predict) of John’s expectations. Guess wrong and I face not only pain, but disappointment.

I’m suddenly thankful I’ve always operated best under pressure.

I straighten up, wishing I had a suit jacket to straighten, but my nod suffices. Challenge accepted. The tension in my muscles starts to melt now, turning hot and liquid, racing like gold through my veins.

I can almost see it sparkling through my wrists, down into my fingertips as I move to inspect the implements closely, more than able to run the variables now that I have complete information. 

Choices are not common for me in this scenario. John is taking a chance, and I must live up to my side, our scales balancing, polarities slowly coming into alignment, or he will take over once again. That would be fine, actually, if unsatisfying, but I find myself determined to do this right. 

I knew as I was acting this afternoon that John would not approve of my behavior, but I had deemed it the necessary course to expediently accomplish my goals. I had been and was still willing to face the consequences for my decision. John responding in this manner, however, was not something I had predicted. He obviously has deemed me unruly enough to enact new, memorable measures. I am unsure at this time if it would be an effective deterrent. 

Our past sessions have not always been predictable, but a recurring element, more than not, is John’s desire to warm me up first. This could be (and has been) done simply with lighter strokes, spaced out, using the same implement he uses to produce howls later, but switching from one to the next seems to please him. A way to shift mindsets, time to prepare? 

But this is about what I’m supposed to deserve, for a behavior he’s resorting to unusual behavior to “fix”. He’ll want to go long, make sure I understand the lesson. Two harsher elements will indicate a measure of contrition, but also confession, saying I think I deserve them. 

But enough blows of any of these are unpleasant, especially after switching back from the worst… I hesitate, trapped in indecision. 

John shifts in my periphery, foot tapping a measured three times. The sound breaks me out of the swirling train of thought, easy to get lost in, especially when I’m drowning inside my head. My process is in shards, broken against the rocks by the sea of feelings that threaten to take me under completely. 

Flogger, leather-covered paddle, crop, cane, wooden paddle, plastic hairbrush. My fingers brush each, and I can’t help a shiver at the last. For all its innocuous appearance, the feel of it against my skin, the biting sting that John gave me no quarter on, and could so easily stroke back to life with the bristles…it was perhaps the worst of them besides the cane. Surely I didn’t deserve that? I consider, and concur with my first impulse, a tiny nod, and move away from it. 

John doesn’t move in my peripheral, and I take his silence for assent. I disguise my sigh in a deeper breath than usual. 

Repeated offense, with conscious decision-making involved… I mentally discard the flogger. It takes time to build up, but I find the pain of it - a heavy slap that warms my skin - more comforting than painful, to be honest. 

Not that tonight is entirely about being honest, but it’s an element to balance.

The crop is also tossed into the mental waste-bin. The connotations are wrong, overtly sexual, too steeped in the past. Which leaves the paddles, the hairbrush, and the cane. I press my lips together. The wood paddle is harsh, but appropriate. That leaves plastic versus leather versus cane. What message do I send? Utter obeisance, falling on his mercy, with the cane. Options for pleasure, with the hairbrush, generously giving a choice back to John over which side he uses. Or a more moderate message, with the leather, saying I deserve one bit of harshness, but not necessarily the other. 

It’s a difficult decision. I’m not generous anywhere but here, but being so now might be taken badly, seen as an act. And there’s still the number of strokes to consider…

I touch the wood paddle, then the cane. “These.” I look at John, striving for neutral, although my vision is too bright, my face hotter than usual, perhaps showing a flush. 

John considers, another breathless moment that snaps something taut inside me, more puppet strings he pulls without knowing it. His small nod of assent lets it relax (just an inch, but enough). I manage not to slump, another gasp above the water closing in.

“And how many?” John looks mildly expectant. 

I grit my teeth. The predictability of the question grating almost as much as the necessity of my answer. “Twenty-five, and six, not counting whatever warmup you want.”

John looks unimpressed at my attempt to circumvent his interference, and stares at me until I fidget, shifting on my feet. 

“Thirty, but six will do,” he corrects. 

I take a moment to absorb the information; a moment to prepare, body and mind, for what’s to come; a moment to be inexplicably comforted by John taking control. 

“Yes, sir.” I look up, meeting his eye. John grins. 

“Good. Clear the bed and get ready.” 

I nod, not needing the words, and turn back to the bed. Picking up each implement only confirms my choices. The image of the use of each plays in my head as I place them carefully back in their places. 

The bed gives beneath my knees as I climb on top of it, putting deep, temporary creases in the duvet as I shift until I am in position. Hands and knees, head down. I don’t undress without a specific command. John seems to enjoy striking me through my trousers, and relishes pulling off my clothes himself. I rather enjoy it myself.

John doesn’t waste any time getting started. The first blows come hard and fast, the fresh input bright and shocking against my skin, shocking my brain. I wince and work to remain in position, especially when careful fingers find their way into my waistband. It’s a sign that the session is going to be more intense, with less of a warm up. 

I do my best to fall into the rhythm of the blows after that, hold position, starting to pant like I’m in a race through the city, following through on my message of contrition and repentance. It’s difficult. John staggers the impacts, sometimes doing three or more in a row, other times waiting between them until my short patience is taxed, tempting me into talking or some other impertinence.

It hurts enough that I’m holding back noise, each solid, deep hit rocking me forward. John seems to realize this, finally slowing down, reducing the force behind the paddle until they’re simply taps, almost soothing against my aching flesh. 

“All warmed up?” John asks. 

I’m fairly certain it’s rhetorical, meant to send me into an emotional state of fearful anticipation, because if that was the warm up, what will the actual punishment be like? I nod anyway, looking down. I stick to my course of repentance, no challenge here to find.

John switches implements, the sounds of his movement soft until he whistles the cane through the air. I flinch, but it’s only a test swing. John swings again, this time touching me with the cane after, another test. I tense at it, the blatant manipulation working. I hate the cane, its biting, burning lash makes me angry, agitates me beyond reason. Even the paired lines it leaves behind are hateful, as though it can’t remain a singular. It simply has to take twice as much flesh as it touches. I much prefer the sting of the crop, the feel of a hand against my flesh. Even the paddle, with its deep pain, is preferable.

“Count for me.” 

Finally, John carries through on the threat. The first lash burns like fire on my upper buttocks. I flinch, grit out, “One.” He continues. 

It’s meticulous work, using a cane, and if I weren’t in the middle of suffering its effects, I might be grateful that John has excellent aim, and has no love of spilling my blood. I know from past experience that my stripes after will be almost perfectly parallel, even in color, and well-placed to keep me squirming when I sit down. 

As it was, I wish this were a regular scene, where the fear and guilt and calculation of punishment are largely absent, and I can sink down into subspace quietly. Instead, I have to count. 

He pauses after the third, “I need you to switch sides; face the end of the bed.” 

I turn around, deliberately graceful, seething at having to participate this much more in my punishment. But I know better than to let it out. An outburst now might mean my stripes are doubled, or John might stop completely, safewording out, leaving until he can calm down. 

The fourth and fifth and sixth blows, in their deliberate pacing, the tip digging into the opposite side of my buttocks, hurt more, somehow. My voice cracks on “six”, and I hate everything that much more. 

John stops, a long pause that does nothing to make me feel better. I continue staring at the bed, refusing to move until John says something. 

“That’s that, then.” I hear the sound of John putting away the implements. “I want you to stay there for another few minutes, think about what you did, and the consequences, and whether you’d like that to happen again. After that, you can take a cold shower.” He doesn’t move to touch me, which is for the better. I have a very hard time submitting to being touched after a punishment, as likely to scratch and bite as I am to give him a tongue-lashing. But these small, incremental steps are doable. There is a comfort in knowing John is not so upset that he’s refusing to dom me completely. 

My backside stings fiercely, pulsing worse and better, and I have to struggle not to fidget as I do as John commands, thinking about my behavior. After my internal clock has ticked over five minutes, and I’ve dissected all the possible angles of the crime and punishment, so to speak, I dismount from the bed, and head directly to the shower. I never thought I’d enjoy cold water, but being able to douse the flames that lick at my skin is an unexpected joy, fiercer for being sanctioned. I only stay in as long as I need to cool down my arse, then exit and find my robe, suddenly eager for contact. 

John is sitting in the living room, pecking at his computer. I prowl towards him and push damp hands against his neck. He jumps at the sensation. “Jesus!” Angling a scowl up at me. I smirk, and drape myself over him. 

“Do you really need to be doing...that?” I ask vaguely, not caring about whatever he’s engaged in. 

John heaves a sigh, hand creeping up to cover mine. “Yes, but it can wait, let’s move this to the sofa.”

“Excellent.”


End file.
